Born in Providence

I’m a writer, artist, licensed clinician, trainer, speaker, trauma-informed care advocate and researcher recovering from an acute episode of life. I was born in Providence.

Finding common threads of growing from adversity in fairy tales, creation stories and scripture left me assuming the blown-down houses, hysterical rulers and predatory demons were somehow part of the plan. Everywhere I went looking for answers revealed hardships were part and parcel to having a heartbeat and if we persevered a gift, lesson or ability would reveal itself. I liked reading in closets, where it was safe, treating stories like life-class; Tragic beginning. Check. Child on a solo, uncharted mission. Check. Talking forest creature to ensure my safety through the haunted forest to a happy ending…Since Bigfoot never showed up, I became a shrink.

I practiced for nearly 10 years in community mental health and hospitals which is one of the reasons I initially chose to write anonymously. I’ve since moved into an advocacy position after learning about The Sanctuary Model of trauma-informed care 8 years ago while working on a psych unit. Destroying Sanctuary validated every painful frustration I’d witnessed for clients and staff the first seven years of my career. The system was broken so I thought I’d help try to fix it. I mentioned Sanctuary in an interview, calling it a blueprint for world peace. It is.

I’d remained on the fence about full transparency with my story for a long time. The lack of clarity associated with people in the helping profession having and talking about their own experiences remained murky at best. Partly because it’s rare. Some have been harshly criticized, ridiculed and laughed out of the profession. Others have been stripped of integrity, labeled unstable, selfish or accused of having poor boundaries. Marsha Linehan talked about her hesitation in an interview with the New York Times in 2011. She waited for years to essentially come out as human.

Anna Freud suggested many join the profession to retain an illusion of power, using the title of ‘expert’ to distance ourselves from any lingering or unattended personal wounds. The letters after our name and certifications we earn act as a kind of shield. I’ve never seen myself as an expert. I became a therapist by default; being a parentified child gave me an edge I honestly hope to lose eventually. Fear of getting fired for being poor was my greatest barrier to freedom, not maintaining some title. I ran from myself for years. Thankfully, surrender found me and I spilled my guts to a journalist. Surreal thing, having a total stranger call and ask you to tell them your life story. For the record, I don’t feel ‘haunted by trauma’ as the headline suggests. Learning to be with and embrace reality, however ugly or beautiful it might be, continues to offer the peace, freedom and substance I’d previously looked for in all the wrong places.

I’m not 100% perfectly healed. Who is? I don’t think we get perfect here. Instead, life offers us opportunities to practice patience, forgiveness, persistence, compassion, listening, taking the high road, eating enough fiber, drinking water and other hard, grown-up stuff. What I notice about western culture is we have no formal system for learning how to do life, deal with each other, deal with our own thoughts, feelings and needs. I know how to care for my teeth without being a dentist, but depression and oppression get treated like hot potatoes. What do I do with this? Ooo! Oww! Ahh! It’s all your fault! Drop it! If someone gets sick we show up with a casserole and a get well card. Tell someone you have P.T.S.D or were sexually abused for a decade; crickets.

Someone told me I’m too self-protective. Trust and timing are an intuitive process. Early in my career I wrote an anonymous advocacy piece. When a colleague was told I’d written it, they laughed. She’s not that smart. I’m an introvert by nature which means I write better than I speak. When you’re constantly censoring yourself for fear that what you might say will be too much for people to handle or will get you thrown out into the street (cause it did), you don’t make any sense. You stare at the floor whispering movie quotes to a carpet instead of washing your face and doing a Tedtalk about what a strong woman you are. #strongwoman I don’t get that whole thing.

I was afraid of troubling people or embarrassing myself; as if I’d been the one who abused me. Hiding gives power away to shame. Keeping secrets is like feeding an impenetrable fence of electric anxiety, behind which we remain a prisoner. Codependence, ego or moral crisis? Probably all of the above. The final piece about hiding was how much the hypocrisy was bothering me. Part of our work as helpers and humans is learning from and teaching each other how to compassionately own all the parts of our lives to encourage collective growth. Really be the change. The truth is ultimately safer, lighter and more reliable. It’s how we get free.

I’m Christian-ish. Don’t run away. I won’t try to saveyou. I actually love people and have studied all kinds of beliefs, noticing the majority of faith practices connect us to a moral compass and source of unconditional love. Each creation story is dressed up in different languages, customs, rituals, songs, foods and clothes. Since I’m not omnipotent I can’t say which prophet is the real Slim Shady of the universe. Maybe there’s more than one right answer. All those holy wars; seems silly to fight about love but it’s the epic eternal battle. Prophets are life guides who love us. My source of unconditional love is something I value deeply, but I also respect all the other sources of spiritual teaching. Without getting into the weeds just know I don’t use Jesus as a weapon. I love him and the way he loved people. That’s all.

The boring facts are I was literally born in Providence Rhode Island. Though my name suggests otherwise, my family lived in a housing project in Woonsocket the first 6 years of my life. Dynomite! Google it. Dynamites are a delicious Woonsocket tradition. We moved into a partially condemned apartment building to get out and things just kept getting better from there, meaning life has offered many colorful lessons. Thirteen years of those lessons took place on Martha’s Vineyard, though it’s generally not associated with children of a lesser god. Rich people need their houses cleaned, kids watched, lawns mowed and trash picked up. My family was happy to oblige and the view didn’t suck. Society tries to polarize our experiences as all good or all bad. Real life recipies are made up of everything; sweet, salty, fancy and sometimes old boxes of Jello collecting dust behind the food coloring in the empty baking cabinet.

Maybe we’re all born in providence and pain is part of the deal. I don’t think God intends for us to suffer; but it does seems like life is some kind of spiritual education disguised as dysfunction. My brother likes to joke that somewhere some people really are sitting on a picnic bench by a lake with boats, eating noodle salad.

I’m a white woman who grew up and through real, often invalidated American poverty, complex trauma, an ongoing dance with anorexia, anxiety, PTSD and body image dysmorphia. I like the F word, Nat Shermans, kale juice and refuse to own a tv. Aside from being darkly introspective and socially awkward, I use humor to cope and refuse to take myself too seriously unless confronted by a pan of frosted brownies. I’m happily married to a man who’s obsessed with bikes and has turned our dining room into a garage. We’re permanently, radically, intentionally, politically and peacefully child-free. This is my blog which helped me finally start writing my book. Stay tuned… -e

This site and its contents are the thoughts, experiences and opinions of Elizabeth Bouvier-Fitzgerald and in no way represent the opinion of any of her employers.

If you’re in need of professional help I sincerely encourage you to seek it.

Please note some names have been changed, some words will occasionally be misspelled, some metaphors will crumble into run-on sentences that make zero sense, all photos and artwork are my own unless otherwise stated and I don’t brush my teeth before bed.

Born in Providence and the contents of this site are protected under copyright through the Library of Congress. I paid $55. I have an official paper and everything.

You story resonates with the life experience of my DIL who is truly suffering right now. I have forwarded your page to her in hopes it will give her hope and a sense that someone out there understands her pain and confusion. Wish we could meet.

Hi Jan, I received your recent response and am feeling protective of your privacy as well as the well being of your DIL so I’ll keep the response private. I’m out of town at the moment but don’t hesitate to call the mobile crisis line 800-875-7364 if you need support or have questions. There are many resources and reasons to be hopeful.

Yes! It’s a shame to see it within the profession. But Anna Freud said it is a function of ego-protection for many survivors of mental illness, addiction and abuse to become therapists and use their professional identity as a protective shield. Other things I’ve seen are simply well-intended ‘nice’ people with no lived experience of trauma become healthcare professionals and cast shame, blame and other forms of judgement onto survivors of trauma. I hope to be a voice of advocacy and change.

Thank you so much for your “like” on my blog about poverty. I was a little afraid to post that one being that it wasn’t sugar coated. I love your opening introduction. I’m honored to have you on my site.

I have so much to say and simultaneously have no idea what to say after reading your about page. I’m a writer, so I should be able to organize this all into words. First, I would like to say that I honor what you are doing. It is both brave, really brave for you, but also so important for others. I don’t often see people do something so death-defyingly brave with their writing. I even less frequently see people dealing with such large things who are able to be so considerate of others and other ways of thinking and be open and…I don’t even know. You seem WISE and STRONG and I’m sure you are still stumbling through parts of this life thing but I consider that part of the previous mentioned capitalized adjectives. I really look forward to reading more of your blog and I will follow it, for sure, even though I am pretty darn sure some of what I read will be scary and uncomfortable. I don’t think it’s worth it to read, or for me write, something that doesn’t cause growth and yet it takes a lot to make that happen. Thank you for writing this and I hope you have a good support system for yourself as you write this. Writing it all out can be quite a shock to the system. <3!!

I agree that the stigma around mental illness needs to be removed and slowly it is beginning to happen but there is a long way to go. Thanks for sharing and thank you for your like on my post. Peace and blessings! 🙂

Your profile is so interesting. I don’t know if you have seen my blog but it took me 50 years before I was able to get therapy. It didn’t go so well, but writing my memoir cleansed me and God healed me through it. It is nice to meet you. I will be checking out more of your blog as time permits. God bless, Nancy

Thank you so much for visiting my site. I have read several posts on your blog; what a powerful story of resilience. You’re kind of a miracle. I agree that God and writing are both very healing. Therapy, haha, I guess I have to endorse it given my profession 😉 It has it’s place in our restoration. God bless you too Nancy. I wish you and your book much success!

It’s so wonderful to meet you! After reading this, I feel like I have been blessed to connect with someone else in this amazing world of blogging who I can relate to in many ways. I am so happy you found and followed my blog. It is relieving to have a place where introverts, as ourselves, can communicate and express our thoughts!❤~Anne

This is a beautiful sharing. Thank you – I love what you wrote about your love of your own prophet and how you respect others’ beliefs. Your loving comes through your words, and I appreciate that! Thanks also for following my blog. Your presence is so welcome. Rumi’s quote (do you know it?) on meeting beyond the ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing is a key for what I practice with forgiveness, best I can. ❤

Elizabeth, you’re right that it’s easier to say, I broke my leg than saying I have depression or PTSD. I do volunteer counseling after I retired. I had a degree in counseling but the teaching job came by so I grabbed the job and catching up with credentials. Please continue to write and do what you believe is right for you. Miriam

Such a deeply honest and thoughtful about. That is the way to reach out and touch others, those of us who need it most. And who doesn’t. I so relate to your introversion. I definitely express myself better in writing than speaking but have been using my latter years to move more to the middle of the I-E scale. I look forward to reading you more often and gleaning wisdom from your posts. God bless you.

Thank you for taking the time to comment Victoria. Always nice to hear our writing offered something helpful or good. Fellow introverts unite, alone, together haha. I recently watched a YouTube interview with Joan Didion who I’m just now starting to read. She had a very difficult time speaking and remarked on it, saying she’s always found writing easier than speaking. I was so happy! I thought, oh there’s hope after all, haha. The middle sounds like a healthy place to discover. Thanks again for visiting!

This first paragraph hooked deep into my heart. You said exactly how I feel with words I hadn’t yet found: ” I didn’t want to talk about it till I’d found love, forgiveness and more than a little safety. Once we have all that it’s hard to go on lying. Your life starts to feel like one long excuse, a string of apologies under which is all this joy. Hiding took more energy than I’d previously realized. So, hello world.” Hello. Well met. I love your writing. ♥.

=) Understood. Hey E, I was writing a comment to your latest poem but it was a bit long and personal. I looked for a contact page but didn’t see one. I saved it but didn’t want to write a book comment. Not really sure about the commenting etiquette yet. ♥.

I am truly honored to have found you, Elizabeth. Your wisdom and experience shine in this article. You made me realize that I also waited far too long to come out as part of the human species. I didn’t feel worthy so I kept it secret. The last 15 years I’ve talked too much, but the last 3 years, I’ve been fortunate to get mental health care/advice and it’s helped. Someone gave me a button. It read, “I’m not as dumb as you look.” They’d pegged me before I’d pegged myself. I keep falling down but I keep getting up. And I’m going to look up the Sanctuary Model – thank you.

Thanks for reading and sharing these thoughts Sharon. Like you I feel I waited too long to be myself too but since taking the leap I feel so much more peace. I’m glad to hear you’re finding people and resources to support your healing. That button 😂 Humor is a sure sign of your strength and resilience. Glad to have met you and I look forward to reading more of your work. The WordPress community is such a gift!